The Director-General signs a Memorandum of Understanding with the Junior Chamber International (JCI)

On 18 February 2009, the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr Koďchiro Matsuura, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the President of the Junior Chamber International (JCI), Mr Jun Sup Shin, and its Secretary-General, Mr Edson A. Kodama.

JCI has been a NGO in operational relations with UNESCO since 1996. A first Letter of Cooperation was signed between JCI and UNESCO in October 2004.

Welcoming the President and the Secretary-General of JCI, Mr Matsuura reiterated UNESCO’s readiness to further strengthen cooperation with JCI, as foreseen by the Memorandum. The Director-General underlined the fact that youth was a priority in UNESCO’s activities and reaffirmed, in this regard, the importance of capacity building to enable young people to participate fully in the development of their society. Reinforced cooperation in the development of training programmes for youth on topics of high relevance for UNESCO was therefore very much welcomed.

The Director-General went on to express his satisfaction with the participation of JCI representatives in UNESCO’s Youth Forum in 2007, and informed the President and the Secretary-General that UNESCO was preparing the 6th edition of this Youth Forum which will take place in October 2009 on the occasion of the 35th session of UNESCO’s General Conference. Mr Matsuura expressed the hope that JCI would again be an active partner in this event, contributing thus to its success.

President Jun Sup Shin thanked the Director-General underlining that JCI is now a leading global network of young citizens between the age of 18 and 40, with National Federations active in more than 100 countries. He underscored the fact that the renewed agreement would provide a great opportunity to reinforce JCI’s cooperation with UNESCO and enhance the training programmes for youth empowerment that are particularly needed in a context of global economic crisis.

For his part, Secretary-General Kodama recalled JCI’s long-standing cooperation with UNESCO and confirmed its readiness to participate actively in the 6th edition of the UNESCO Youth Forum.